I never thought I'd buy...

...an electric pencil sharpener. But here I am, spending AUD$115 on one.

I own a lot of Derwent pencils, and for years I have happily sharpened them with a normal hand sharpener. Yesterday, all that changed when my Prismacolor order arrived - almost 200 pencils, and not one of them pre-sharpened! I knew this to be the case when I ordered the pencils, but I didn't realise the implications at the time...

Looking at my beautiful new pencils, I knew I had a problem: I have rotator cuff and wrist tendonitis in both arms - so there was no way on God's green earth that I would be hand-sharpening ~200 coloured pencils!

So, I am now the proud new owner of an X-Acto SchoolPro Electric Sharpener: